Each answer resolves to the share of the 650 parliamentary seats won by each of the main parties in the 2024 UK General Election, with named parties rounded to the nearest full percentage. i.e. if results were the same as 2019 then this would resolve 56% Conservative, 31% Labour, 7% SNP, 2% Liberal Democrat, 4% other. Speaker’s seat is counted in Other.
1,000
3.00@Noit I don't believe it either, but I don't pretend to be able to shed any light on the poll itself. Instead I just have some scattered thoughts and heuristics.
Starmer and Labour aren't necessarily popular; just the tories are unpopular. In a way, that should be enough; if the tories are unpopular enough, people will vote against them, but I do think it makes any poll lead much less robust and vulnerable to fluctuation.
Sometimes people use a poll as a way to vent. A lifelong tory voter might be asked "who will you vote for" but the question they want to answer is "yes, I'm really angry at the government". Come election day, they might go for their old favourite.
Does anybody know how much of an impact polling ID laws will make? Do polls try to factor this in?
The media will give Labour a harder time as the election gets closer.
Sunak can time the election whenever suits the tories best.
Most people don't really start thinking about who to vote for until the campaign. As 2017 showed us, a lot can change during the campaign.
Any noise will move us closer to "normal" (which in this case is probably a slim Conservative majority). This particular poll is more likely to be wrong in one direction than the other.
But most importantly, big, shocking, unprecedented things don't happen that much. I think they happen much less than they get predicted.
I do think Labour will win the election, probably even a comfortable majority, but I'll always bet against results like that poll indicates.
@Fion Oh also, Reform are probably performing better in the polls than they will on election day. Protest votes often don't fully materialise. Most of their votes will go to the tories.